The field of the present invention relates to archery bows. In particular, an archery bow having center-bearing limbs and methods for manufacturing an archery bow incorporating such limbs are disclosed herein.
Previous limbs for archery bows typically are secured near one end thereof to a riser, and can be referred to as end-pivot limbs for purposes of this disclosure. Upon drawing the bow, the limbs are deformed as the energy expended in drawing the bow is stored as strain energy of the deformed limbs. This energy is then released as kinetic energy of the arrow when the bow is shot and the limbs return to their original, unstrained shape.
End-pivot limbs typically are subject to localized forces and stresses that are substantially magnified by the lever arm of the limb (roughly, the overall limb length divided by the limb length in contact with the riser). The bending moment and effective moment of inertia typically are largest for a limb with a pivot point near one end. It may be desirable to provide a bow limb having a pivot point or bearing point nearer to the center of the limb than in previous bows.